Lyon (the lion city)

As promised, I bring to you a post all about my trip to Lyon yesterday. It might be a little bit long- I never knew I could fit so much adventure into one day! However, I can assure that it won't be boring (unless you dislike art, history, and beautiful cities).

We began the day bright and early (hello 7am), with an hour train ride. One of my favorite things about France is how easy and cheap it is to get to all of the best places! Stumbling out of the train station at something like 8:30, we made our way to the office of tourism to snag a map and plan our day's adventures. There was a slight delay at the train station because we found a Starbucks. Couldn't pass up a chance to snag my only Pumpkin Spice Latte of the year.

First stop on our list of things to see was The Musee des Beaux Arts. On foot we trekked through the busy streets on foot arriving at the museum within twenty minutes, and enjoyed free admission into the museum upon presentation of our student ID cards. Beyond the entrance lay the most amazing exhibit of art I've seen in France thus far. Not because it was particularly enormous, or because it held the most famous paintings (the Louvre beats it in pretty much every category), but because it held the most art that I connected to personally. My favorite sections included the impressionists, modern art, and the temporary exhibit of surrealists. I won't bore you with a huge list of my favorite paintings, but here are a few pictures I've taken, and  a few from the internet of paintings I forgot to snap my own photo of.

Left: Monet's "Springtime"
Right top: PIcasso's "Woman sits on a beach"
Right lower: Manet's "Portrait of Marguerite Gauthier"
Bottom" Degas' "Dancers on a Stage"

Those are some of the more famous impressionist era paintings, plus a Picasso. Now for a sneak peak of my favorite abstract/modern pieces!

Top: Raoul Duff's "L'atelier aux Raisins"
Bottom Left: Albert Gleizes' "The studier, Eugene Figure"
Bottom Right: Roger de la Fresnage's "Alice in a Big Hat"

I will take a moment to emphasize my complete love affair with Jospeh Cornell. Beaux Arts was having a temporary exhibit of his work, and I have never seen anything more beautiful in my life. A surrealist, known for his shadow boxes,  he creates beautifully dreamy scenes trapped in cases of all different sorts. I highly recommend that you look into his work if you enjoy surrealist art.

I sat down for a moment and wrote this little paragraph on my feelings about experiencing art. 

"If you will allow yourself for a moment, let go of names, styles, and dates of paintings. Let yourself be taken under the size and the color of the images around you. Let your chest feel full and light with air, and love whatever moves you. This is what it means to experience art."

High on life, but hungry, we meandered through Lyon and stopped for lunch. I split a three course meal with my traveling companion Jasmine. Restaurants, even in France, often give you more food than one person can handle so splitting meals can be a pretty economic option. Our appetizer was garlic mashed potatoes topped with herring, followed by an entree of delicious steak in red-wine sauce, served with fresh thick-cut potato chips, and we ended with a cherry/strawberry/raspberry cake covered in a creamy buttery sauce. Mmmmm.

Once we'd had our fill of delicious Lyonaise cuisine, we realized we were out of time for our initially planned boat tour. Not to worry! We decided to hike up to the Basilica instead. The walk was gorgeous and definitely needed after all the rich French food, and the Basilica....well....the pictures will show you how well worth it this little hike was. I have never seen a church more beautiful than this one.

Even though it was a little crowded, I could still feel the peace and holiness of this beautiful place. Everything from the inside out filled me with happiness and awe. If you've never been nearly moved to tears by a place because of it's beauty, this one might just do it.

On our way back down the hill, we made an impromptu detour to see some roman ruins! We didn't go through the museum so I don't have much historical information for you. It seems like this may have previously been an amphitheater or arena of some kind. I had a lot of fun climbing through the ruins and taking photos of the rubble. There were even some brides getting their wedding pictures taken there.

We took our time wandering back to the train station through the streets of Lyon, which resulted in missing our train. Oops! Luckily it doesn't cost extra to hop on the next train, so long as there are seats (there were). We ended up in Grenoble somewhere around 8:30, and took off to go see a free local concert. The band was composed of 3 younger french boys playing an interesting type of Rock. Most of their songs were in English, and they had a pretty good beat. We ended the night at an Irish Pub playing darts with the locals. Well, some of us played, others just watched ;).

Needless to say, I'v been taking time today to recuperate from my amazing journey. Can't wait to see what's in store next week!